In recent years, three-dimensional (3D) displays for viewing 3D images have become popular. For example, movie theaters equipped with 3D displays or 3D televisions may allow viewers to view 3D movies for enhanced visual experience. However, such 3D movies often require viewers to wear 3D glasses or visual aids to perceive 3D images. The use of such 3D glasses or visual aids may be inconvenient to some viewers due to the weight or discomfort of the devices.
To alleviate such inconvenience of viewers, autostereoscopic displays have been developed to allow viewers to perceive 3D images without 3D glasses or visual aids. Conventional autostereoscopic displays typically display 3D images using either a spatial-multiplexed method or a time-multiplexed method. In the spatial-multiplexed method, an optical stripe panel such as a parallax-barrier or a lenticular-sheet may be provided in an autostereoscopic display to divide the visual fields for the left and right eyes to form a pair of stereoscopic images for a viewer. However, the use of such an optical stripe panel may result in a degraded or reduced image-resolution, low light-efficiency, and narrow viewing angle.
In the time-multiplexed method, left and right view-images are displayed sequentially to allow the left and right eyes of a viewer to perceive 3D images. In this method, various types of lenses, mirror, or 3D films with prisms are typically used to form directional backlights for the left and right view-images. However, use of lenses or mirrors may result in an increase in the size of a 3D display device. In the case of 3D films with prisms, it may be difficult to precisely produce the micrometer-sized 3D films with prisms and accurately align the 3D films with prisms to a light guide structure.